The Wedding Invitation Catalyst
by SergeantFuzzyBoots
Summary: Leonard and Penny agree to attend Howard and Bernadette's wedding together, and agree to something else as well. Based on a scene from The Transporter Malfunction; no real spoilers.


**So, just a quick one-shot based on a small Leonard/Penny moment in the first scene of The Transporter Malfunction, but no real spoilers for the episode.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

Leonard grinned when he entered the apartment building and saw Penny at the mailbox. Even when they hadn't been dating, seeing her upon entering a room had always brought a smile to the experimental physicist's face, but now that they were back together and in beta test mode, his grin –and his level of happiness, for that matter –had grown much larger.

"Hey," he said, as Penny turned away from the mailbox.

She grinned. "Hey, you."

Leonard eyed the stack of letters in her hand. "That's a lot of stuff you've got there."

Penny shrugged, nodding. "Yeah, I'd been avoiding checking the mail so I wouldn't have to face my bills for a few extra days," she explained, beginning to flip through the various envelopes. "But, as it turns out, if you let your mailbox get too full, a cranky mailman comes to your door, complains for two minutes and then spends the next fifteen whining about the rest of his personal life." She merely shrugged when Leonard raised an eyebrow at her. "I guess it's like you said, civil servants have a tendency to snap."

Leonard frowned, remembering back to when he'd mentioned that. "Uh huh, right. They do tend to do that."

They began making their way up the stairs, Penny continuing to rifle through her mail. "Oh, hey," she said, pulling out a smaller envelope from the pile. "It's an invitation to Howard and Bernadette's wedding."

"Oh, right, Sheldon and I got ours a few days ago." Leonard didn't have the most positive association with the invitations since his roommate had spent the rest of their day complaining about the existence of fancy weddings, and not understanding why people couldn't simply sign a marriage certificate and then celebrate with cake at home. However, Penny reminding him of them did bring up a question he had.

"So, I was wondering," he said, as they reached the second floor. "Are we going to the wedding together, like, am I bringing you?"

"Well, I was hoping so, since Ryan Gosling's busy that day and can't take me," she said, flashing him a teasing grin.

Leonard raised an eyebrow at her. "You're not supposed to cheat on me with Ryan Gosling until after we're married," he reminded her.

"Is that you giving me permission to?" she asked, giggling.

He grinned, shaking his head. "Absolutely not."

She leaned over and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Got it." They made it up to the third floor before Penny spoke again. "So, since we're going together, will you dance with me at the wedding?"

"Oh." Leonard frowned, slightly surprised. He knew Penny enjoyed dancing, but he wasn't very good at it, and they hadn't really done much of it when they'd first dated. The closest they'd come was at the disco night at the rollerblading arena –although, on his part, that hadn't been so much dancing as it had been falling. "I don't know...," he replied, beginning to fidget with his hands.

"Oh, come on!" Penny pleaded. "I know you danced with Amy at the wedding you took her to."

"I pulled my groin doing that!" Leonard protested. The dancing had been fun at first, but the memories of how sore he'd been the following week made him hesitant to try it again. Plus, pulling his groin while dancing with Amy had been one thing, but if that happened with Penny, then...well, Leonard wasn't certain, but he could probably kiss any chance he had of Penny not cheating on him with Ryan Gosling goodbye –in their on-going banter about it, anyway.

"Well, then, how about we just slow dance," she suggested. "You wouldn't be able to hurt yourself doing that."

Leonard tipped his head to the side slightly. Slow dancing probably wouldn't be so bad –considering it would involve him holding Penny close to him for a heck of a lot longer than five Mississippi's, it wasn't bad at all. The only real movement it entailed would be swaying back and forth, and Leonard figured he could handle that.

"Okay." He nodded, beginning to like the idea. "We'll slow dance."

"Really?" Penny asked excitedly, a grin spreading across her face.

"Yeah, I mean, I'll be dancing with you, how bad could it be?"

The look she gave him at that was hard to describe, but it made the inside of Leonard's chest feel warm and caused his pulse to quicken. They grinned at each other for a moment, then came to a halt as they reached the fourth floor.

"Well, I wouldn't be nervous about the dancing," Penny said after a moment. "Shamy's probably going to show us all up on the dance floor.

Leonard smirked, rolling his eyes. "Sheldon doesn't dance."

"Oh," Penny said, putting a hand on his arm. "Trust me, he does."

Leonard cocked his head. "With Amy?"

"With Amy."

"You're lying," he said, shaking his head.

Penny simply sighed. "Whatever, you'll see for yourself soon enough."

Leonard shook his head again. If his roommate had made one thing clear, it was that Sheldon Cooper did not dance, whether he was going solo or with a pattern; he didn't even think Amy Farrah Fowler could change that.

**Hope you all enjoyed it. For everyone at the Snuggler thread at FanForum, these two dancing at Howard and Bernadette's wedding is kind of must, so I thought I'd incorporate it into this fic. :)**


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